They made a brief, manful effort. But the irrepressible
outbursts from the audience bewildered them; every
time Sir Lancelot du Lake the Child opened his mouth,
the great, shadowy house fell into an uproar, and the
children into confusion. Strong women and brave
girls in the audience went out into the lobby, shrieking
and clinging to one another. Others remained,
rocking in their seats, helpless and spent. The
neighbourhood of Mrs. Schofield and Margaret became,
tactfully, a desert. Friends of the author went
behind the scenes and encountered a hitherto unknown
phase of Mrs. Lora Rewbush; they said, afterward, that
she hardly seemed to know what she was doing.
She begged to be left alone somewhere with Penrod
Schofield, for just a little while.
They led her away.
The sun was setting behind the back fence (though
at a considerable distance) as Penrod Schofield approached
that fence and looked thoughtfully up at the top of
it, apparently having in mind some purpose to climb
up and sit there. Debating this, he passed his
fingers gently up and down the backs of his legs;
and then something seemed to decide him not to sit
anywhere. He leaned against the fence, sighed
profoundly, and gazed at Duke, his wistful dog.
The sigh was reminiscent: episodes of simple
pathos were passing before his inward eye. About
the most painful was the vision of lovely Marjorie
Jones, weeping with rage as the Child Sir Lancelot
was dragged, insatiate, from the prostrate and howling
Child Sir Galahad, after an onslaught delivered the
precise instant the curtain began to fall upon the
demoralized “pageant.” And then—oh,
pangs! oh, woman!—she slapped at the ruffian’s
cheek, as he was led past her by a resentful janitor;
and turning, flung her arms round the Child Sir Galahad’s
neck.
“Penrod Schofield, don’t
you dare ever speak to me
again as long as you live!”
Maurice’s little white boots and gold tassels
had done their work.
At home the late Child Sir Lancelot was consigned
to a locked clothes-closet pending the arrival of
his father. Mr. Schofield came and, shortly after,
there was put into practice an old patriarchal custom.
It is a custom of inconceivable antiquity: probably
primordial, certainly prehistoric, but still in vogue
in some remaining citadels of the ancient simplicities
of the Republic.
And now, therefore, in the dusk, Penrod leaned against
the fence and sighed.
His case is comparable to that of an adult who could
have survived a similar experience. Looking back
to the sawdust-box, fancy pictures this comparable
adult a serious and inventive writer engaged in congenial
literary activities in a private retreat. We see
this period marked by the creation of some of the
most virile passages of a Work dealing exclusively
in red corpuscles and huge primal impulses. We
see this thoughtful man dragged from his calm seclusion
to a horrifying publicity; forced to adopt the stage
and, himself a writer, compelled to exploit the repulsive
sentiments of an author not only personally distasteful
to him but whose whole method and school in belles
lettres he despises.
